From the entry
As well as a frontispiece design (D13750) and one effectively finished work (D18158), this section comprises ‘colour beginnings’ for a number of subjects associated with the Marine Views project of the early 1820s; for a discussion of the function of such works in general, see the Introduction to the ‘England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825–39’ section. The presence of studies which may relate to the first watercolour engraved for the series, made in 1817 at the latest, requires an overall date range beginning in that year, although the main phase of Turner’s involvement was between 1822 and 1824. The engraver and publisher W.B. Cooke worked with Turner on a number of projects including the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, initiated in 1811 and still ongoing (see the Introduction to the ‘West Country 1811’ section of this catalogue). He had owned Turner’s large (430 x 650 mm) watercolour of the Eddystone ...
References
As well as a frontispiece design (D13750) and one effectively finished work (D18158), this section comprises ‘colour beginnings’ for a number of subjects associated with the Marine Views project of the early 1820s; for a discussion of the function of such works in general, see the Introduction to the ‘England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825–39’ section.1 The presence of studies which may relate to the first watercolour engraved for the series, made in 1817 at the latest, requires an overall date range beginning in that year, although the main phase of Turner’s involvement was between 1822 and 1824.
The engraver and publisher W.B. Cooke worked with Turner on a number of projects2 including the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, initiated in 1811 and still ongoing (see the Introduction to the ‘West Country 1811’ section of this catalogue). He had owned Turner’s large (430 x 650 mm) watercolour of the Eddystone Lighthouse (listed with others associated with the series in the checklist below) since 1817, seemingly intending to publish it in his short-lived Rivers of Devon3 (see the Introduction to ‘Rivers of Devon c.1814–15’); in 1822 he was planning to engrave the similarly large-scale (398 x 591 mm) Hastings from the Sea (British Museum, London),4 which had been on his hands since 1818, for another project.5
These circumstances seem to have led to a proposal for a new series of Marine Views, and led Turner to make six further watercolours now associated with between 1822 and 1824: Sun-rise. Whiting Fishing at Margate, A Storm (Shipwreck), Twilight – Smugglers off Folkestone Fishing Up Smuggled Gin, Fish-Market, Hastings, Folkestone from the Sea, and Dover Castle. These were made on an impressive scale to match that of the Eddystone design, and the colour studies covered here are commensurately large. Only the first composition was issued as an engraving at the time, although Cooke publicised other subjects by including the watercolours in exhibitions during January 1823 and April–May 1824 at his London premises6 (noted individually in the checklist). The project tailed off rapidly, and the general relationship between Turner and Cooke soured dramatically and came to an end in 1827, not least over an apparent misunderstanding over the ownership of the original for the vignette frontispiece of the series, which was returned to the artist in circumstances discussed in its individual entry.7
There follows a checklist of the two published subjects, and others associated with the series (on six of which there is general consensus), with cross-references to the Turner Bequest colour studies catalogued in this section; the frontispiece (D13750) and Folkestone from the Sea (D18158) are finished or nearly finished designs in their own right:
The Ed[d]ystone Light House. Watercolour, c.1817 (private collection);11 engraved 1824 as ‘Plate I of a Series of Marine Views’; Tate impression: T04820;12 possible colour studies: Tate D17171, D17172 (Turner Bequest CXCVI G, H). For a detailed description of the engraving and a discussion of its place in the series in general, see under T04820.13
Sun-rise. Whiting Fishing at Margate. Watercolour, 1822 (private collection);14 engraved 1825 as ‘Marine Views. Plate 2’ (Tate impression: T06655);15 exhibited at Cooke’s Gallery in 1823 (no number, added during the course of the exhibition as ‘Margate. Sunrise’,16 but advertised as ‘A Sun-rise’17); possible colour studies: Tate D25497, D25507 (CCLXIII 374, 383).
Andrew Wilton suggested that the following further subjects ‘may have been intended for publication in the series’:18
Twilight – Smugglers off Folkestone Fishing Up Smuggled Gin. Watercolour, 1824 (private collection);22 exhibited at Cooke’s Gallery in 1824 (41);23 engraved ?c.1826–7, probably for Marine Views, but not published; Tate impression: T05197; likely colour study: Tate D36072 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 226)
Shipwreck off Hastings. Watercolour, c.1825 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin).26 Eric Shanes has noted that this work, with its rather smaller scale and closely stippled technique, is more likely to have been intended for the Ports of England series of the mid-1820s27 (see Alice Rylance-Watson’s ‘Ports of England c.1822–8’ section in the present catalogue)
Shanes has proposed two additions:
See also Eric Shanes, ‘Beginnings’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, pp.21–3; among many other accounts, see also Andrew Wilton in Martin Butlin, Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.26; and Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.187.
See Gillian Forrester, ‘Cook, William Bernard’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.63.
For further accounts of the project, see Wilton 1979, p.357, Eric Shanes, Turner’s Rivers, Harbours and Coasts, London 1981, pp.10–12, 33, Luke Herrmann, Turner Prints: The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1990, p.159, Shanes 1990, pp.12–13, Warrell 1991, p.29, Shanes 1997, pp.28, 99, Eric Shanes in Shanes, Evelyn Joll, Ian Warrell and others, Turner: The Great Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2000, p.152 under no.58, and David Blayney Brown in Brown, Sarah Skinner and Ian Warrell, Coasting: Turner and Bonington on the Shores of the Channel, exhibition catalogue, Nottingham Castle 2008, pp.18–19.
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., vol.II, London 1913, p.371 no.770.
Uncredited catalogue Tate curatorial text originally published in Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1986–88, London 1996, pp.179–80.
Alexander J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Second Edition, Revised, with a Supplement, by Hilda F. Finberg, revised ed., Oxford 1961, p.485 no.288.
Wilton 1979, p.358 no.510, as ‘Hastings: fish-market on the sands’, untraced; Shanes 1990, pp.124–5 no.97, reproduced in colour.
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Finished Designs and Colour Studies for ‘Marine Views’ c.1817–24’, July 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www